The book is no longer evident at the website for STI (Scientific Therapeutic Information), the company that provided authorship “help.” I tried to get a copy on Amazon.com, where it’s said to be temporarily out-of-stock. The work remains listed in the Library of Congress on-line catalog: #99015420.

I’m reminded of clinical handbooks I used all the time when I was practicing hematology and oncology. At the hospital, I’d get freebie, small-sized chemo regimen primers that conveniently fit into my white coat pocket. In retrospect, perhaps I didn’t adequately check the authors’ credentials on those mini-book sources. It was too easy to take that information and keep it at hand, literally, especially in the times before we had constant Web access.

And I’m struck by how the Internet – that infinite bucket of once-lowly or at-best mixed-quality information doctors disparaged for years – may prove a better information source than printed books.

It’s a minor paradox, or a twist in trust –

Now, with a few clicks if you know where to look, you can get recommendations for chemo dosing from reliable sources, like the NIH or peer-reviewed journal articles. Although transparency about physicians’ ties to industry is not nearly yet where it should be, you can find out about more about an author’s connections and potential conflicts of interest than at any time in medical publishing history.